Template talk:Punctuation marks

Edit request on 9 January 2012

The founding date for the Nu Iota chapter of Phi Beta Sigma is 1980. It was the 1st Greek Organization on the campus of UNCP. 166.137.15.138 (talk) 06:00, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Think you're on the wrong page, friend. — Bility (talk) 16:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This is hilarious =) --Mudd1 (talk) 17:22, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

<includeonly>

Please, give a link where the absence of <includeonly> makes troubles. In any case, do not make bulk rollbacks (restore <includeonly> if it is needed). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I reverted your whole edit because the version produced the wrong outcome. Your es was not inviting to spend time on details. -DePiep (talk) 23:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Wrong outcome" are two words which mean nothing. Report perceivable problems, not just revert one's work because it is not perfect. May be you will gain some respect this way, even if reverting will precede a discussion. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:53, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

You did not read both my sentences, did you? -DePiep (talk) 10:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal in the sandbox

I have prepared a proposal in the {{punctuation marks/sandbox}}. Please take a look at {{punctuation marks/testcases}} (new sandbox version is lefthand side) to check for any strange effects (Windows IE?).

Major change: the new box with the three variants now is a complete subtemplate box to make it more manageable. Also changed: some effects with the big symbol. Any comments? -DePiep (talk) 17:26, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Y Done Moved into live. -DePiep (talk) 08:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Variants: layout suggestions

Hi,

1. I think it would look better if the row for variants (when included) was always made 100% of the width of the box. At the moment, there can be a blank gap at the end, as illustrated below, which looks like something has gone wrong:

2. If no captions are provided then I think it would be better to suppress the row altogether than have empty grey boxes like this:

Latest revision as of 11:36, 18 April 2012 (edit) (undo)

86.177.108.200 (talk)

I collapsed the examples, and signed your edit. -DePiep (talk) 20:18, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Good suggestions, I thought of them at first try. Not an easy thing though, so I left them. -DePiep (talk) 20:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

We could split {{Currency mark}}. -DePiep (talk) 20:21, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

DUMB BUNNY ALERT! --- stoopid question ahead

Hello, Punctuation Fans:

I've looked through the template and captions, and through the "Talk" page and archives, but no soap.

What does the vertical line to the left of the punctuation mark, shown in the large main image, represent? Does it represent a preceding space, a preceding letter, the edge of the computer screen for all I know? The coma is shown at the bottom of the vertical line with just a smidge of the tail projecting below it; the ampersand projects a little above the vertical line at the top of the mark and well above at the bottom; the is tee aligns with the top of the vertical line; the dagger and twice-as-menacing double dagger aggressively project both above and below the vertical line; the underscore is presented totally below the vertical line and tucked slight under it. It's just not clear to me what that dang vertical line means! And I'm so easily confused! Thank you for helping me understand this matter, Wordreader (talk) 21:20, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

First of al, Wordreader, would you please do not shout. Second, what is a dang vertical line? Three, exactly where did you see it, in the template code, or on the article pages? -DePiep (talk) 06:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a Zero-width non-joiner. I'm not sure why it's visible for you, nor why we need it in this template - it's for separating ligatures, but this template doesn't include any ligatures afaik, they're all in Template:Diacritical marks. Hmmmm. Maybe we should remove it? I'll experiment in the sandbox. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Don't think so. Never heard of a ZWNJ showing up. Also, after the shouting Wordreader did not clarify enough what they saw (e.g. is it gone after your edit then?). -DePiep (talk) 06:31, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be unnecessary. There are a few more uses of it in this template, where is also seems to be unneeded (and might show up unexpectedly for other users, as it is for Wordreader, and should therefore be removed?) eg

number sign‌/pound‌/hash

number sign/pound/hash

number sign‌/pound‌/hash

number sign/pound/hash

I can't see any differences between these lines. Can you (anyone) ? If there are no objections, I'll remove all of those, later on today. (like this) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:15, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Removed. If there are any unforeseen consequences, please let us know and revert. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed no disturbing effects seen. This is the background:

About ZWNJ, in general: in a box or page with limited width (too small for the whole line of text), the ZWNJ does this:

ZWNJ before each slash:
Number sign‌/pound‌/hash‌/number sign‌/pound‌/hash‌/number sign‌/pound‌/hash‌/number sign‌/pound‌/hash
Without ZWNJ:
Number sign/pound/hash/number sign/pound/hash/sign/pound/hash/number sign/pound/hash/number sign/pound/hash/number sign/pound/hash/number sign/pound/hash/number sign/pound/hash
ZWSP before each slash:
Number sign​/pound​/hash​/number sign​/pound​/hash​/number sign​/pound​/hash​/number sign​/pound​/hash

- ZWNJ was added here in the lines to suggest a line-break in case the line was too wide for its table-template cell, adding a 2nd row in the cell. That would reduce the template's width. It does not happen this way (on my & many a browser), so there is much whitespace in each mid-row. Now we cannot put text and symbol in one table cell (text line) using left and right for the two text-aligns (it would have been be great). Because IE (older) does not render such a line properly. The workaround is that it is a five column table now, per row choosing the number of left- and righthand columns like (1:4) or (3:2). This accomodates different widths of the l/r text elements. It appears that browsers do widen the cell before introduce a line-break, so the ZWNJ line-break option is never used. So no effect when deleting them. Remaining issue is the mid-row whitespace, which is too much to be nice. Long time ago I cleaned up the template, which had many more stacked style & layout effects. -DePiep (talk) 07:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

-The thing the shouting editor sees in the top-cell (big mark) was probably introduced to solve that other problem: the big mark crossing the box border. Reads like it is not solved. -DePiep (talk) 07:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, so it was a hack for linebreaks. I believe the {{nowrap}} template is the recommended method, for that. (per Wikipedia:Line break handling#Preventing and controlling word wraps)

I too, could see a large vertical line appear, in a few instances. I did not determine what was causing it to show up, nor why it was only restricted to certain circumstances. -- Quiddity (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

No, it was the opposite of {{nowrap}}: trying to get a soft line-break (from the browser) in a regular table cell, so as to make the box less wide (and longer so). Top half of the colored box was looked for. That would reduce mid-line whitespace. But clearly that does not work that way, browsers just keep widening the cell and the whole table instead. So your rm edit has no effect. -DePiep (talk) 15:13, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Added 3rd option to the colored demo box: same text, now with ZWSP before every slash. In the /sandbox no effect still. Sure, ZWSP should be used for this not ZWNJ - if it would work. -DePiep (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I wrote that very unclearly. I meant: "Ahhh, so the ZWNJs were being used as a linebreak-control-mechanism. That's an incorrect usage. I think we're meant to be using templates like {{nowrap}}, {{wrap}}, {{spaces}}, and similar, to do that."

I didn't know about {{zwsp}}, that's interesting, thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

OK now here. Maybe we'll meet om ZWSP vs ZWNJ later on. This template really is a beast waiting to be tamed by CSS. -DePiep (talk) 00:32, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Image of the Interrobang—horrible.

I thought there was a better icon on this page for the Interrobang before… but it (obviously) might have changed.

The current one is horrible. Mostly "interro", almost no "bang". An image combining—visually, STRIKINGLY—both the question mark AND the exclamation point would be better.

If your response is, "Then make one!" I will. ;-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DarksideHalo (talk • contribs) 17:53, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Note: HOLY CRAP that's not an image, it's text, actually a character. That's WRONG. 1) Looks horrible on my browser. 1.1) Doesn't matter which browser or version or operating system… which emphasizes the point. Since it's not a standard character, we should make a signature image that represents the BEST visualization. 2) There's a better image down the page. Granted, represented in a specific font… — Preceding unsigned comment added by DarksideHalo (talk • contribs) 18:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

There are a variety of designs given in the article, at Interrobang#Entering and display. The first in that row is an image, the rest are characters in various fonts.

The font used in this navigation template is chosen via CSS. Current order of precedence (depending on what the user's system has available) is "style="font-size:1250%; font-family:'Times New Roman',Times,Georgia,'Liberation Serif',serif,sans-serif,'Lucida Sans Unicode';" - I agree the enlarged example looks terrible on my system (linux ubuntu, with a handful of custom typefaces installed), but Any changes to the specified typeface in this template would have major repurcussions on All the example marks (again, depending on the user's system). Feel free to suggest changes, but thorough testing is needed before any major changes actually get implemented. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Logical symbols

No. If to include logical symbols, when what about +, −, ×, ↪, ↦, ⊕, ⊗? Punctuation marks and general typography is a quite reasonable grouping of symbols. I am not happy even with the presence of currency symbols, but they fortunately do not occupy much space. Don't bloat the navbox. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Currency and trademark symbols are NOT punctuation, but logical symbols are. So what is this template for, if not this very thing? Remove that stuff before you remove the logical symbols. I'm not clear that whoever constructed this thing even knows what punctuation is. Whatev. I'll make one just for logical symbols. Greg Bard (talk) 11:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I've added a link to the new Template:Logical symbols that you created, to the documentation page here.

I've added a link to List of logic symbols within the templates {{Punctuation marks}} and {{Diacritical marks}}.

Both of you: the above discussion is unclear, because it presupposes that you're only talking to each other. Please try to address threads to all who might participate, or at least include diffs so that each person reading the thread doesn't have to research for themselves wtf you're talking about!

I have no opinion on splitting/merging the content, at this time. —Quiddity (talk) 23:30, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

Sure, I would support expelling currencies and intellectual property. The criterion of inclusion to {{punctuation marks}} should be absence of a sense (of something which is perceived as the primary, unambiguous sense) in isolation. There is no sense in . , ! § · ( and even °. But for + ∞ √ ∧ ¤ © there are some concepts which these symbols denote, not only names of symbols like "full stop" and "bracket". Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:18, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

(I've added a subhead above your comment, to make the tangent a bit clearer. Hope that's ok.)

I'd rather follow an existing system, if one can be chosen, than invent our own inclusion criteria. What is the most basic breakdown of the topic, as used in our system currently? As I see it:

Current groups of typographic marks:

• Punctuation, and {{Punctuation marks}}, (theoretically) all in Category:Punctuation
• Diacritic, and {{Diacritical marks}}, all in Category:Diacritics
• List of logic symbols, and {{Logical symbols}}, all in Category:Logic symbols

Unconnected:

• {{Common typographical symbols}}
• Currency sign and {{Currency signs}}, all in Category:Currency signs
• List of mathematical symbols
• Greek letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering, and {{Greek Alphabet}}

Which is veering into:

• Grapheme and Glyph and Typography and {{Typography terms}}

Mostly these are within the folds of WP:WikiProject Writing systems and WP:WikiProject Typography.

Tis good to understand (and update) the totality, when contemplating large changes.

Will splitting out the 5 lines of currency marks, benefit our readers more than it hinders them?

Separatism, and Mergism, need to be balanced, and their flaws considered and understood in any situation. (A strong-separatist would advocate, completely understandably, that all the disparate elements currently in this template sh/could be split out into their own navboxes. Most editors would agree that grouping some of them together is a bit more practical. I personally lean towards moderate-mergism in many situations, but try to examine each independently, and think longterm, and be open to convincing...)

Just trying to keep things straight, and organized, for all our benefits. :) —Quiddity (talk) 10:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

re Splitting out the currency signs. Shouldn't they be merged into {{Currency signs}}, since that navbox already is on every currency sign page. In other words: a currency sign sidebar would double the same information. (Indeed, "mergeng" would effectively mean "deleting" from {{punctuation marks}} and no new sidebar). -DePiep (talk) 17:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

What is the difference between mathematical symbols and logic(al) symbols. Many of the former clearly take the role of punctuation, and some of the latter almost as clearly do not. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion

Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Logical_symbols

The recently created template Template:Logical symbols, has been nominated for deletion. This may eventually have an impact on the punctuation template, so I thought I would post this here.Greg Bard (talk) 15:19, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Anothrt example of WP:CANVASS. The only relationship between that template and this one is that Greg added some of the symbols to this template before moving them, and some other, to the other template. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:29, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Most incompetent Wiki-prosecutor ever. Have you even read the canvas policy? Stop looking for trouble, Arthur. This is where the original discussion was had. I would be remiss to leave them out of the loop here.Greg Bard (talk) 18:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Stop quarreling. Creation and also TfD of that tempate is all to the point. If you don't argue at the TfD page, I'll have you both voted into a volunteership (eh ;-)). Now go arguing seriously at the TfD. -DePiep (talk) 21:22, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there are two separate questions, which might have two different appropriate sections for discussions.

1. Whether the template should exist, with TfD as the appropriate location for dicussion.
2. Whether the information in the template should exist as, say, an expandable section of this template. Discussion on that should be here.

I don't care about the latter, as long as it's not used in articles on logical symbols and concepts. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:00, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

No WP:FORUMSHOP. See you at the TfD. -DePiep (talk) 23:45, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

That's not forum shopping, and you should know it. If the result of the TfD is delete, then it wouldn't be contrary to that result to reinsert the template as a subtemplate here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:50, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Name of Template Not Clear

The name of the template is clearly "Punctuation", however, just looking at the template itself, it looks as though it is without a name with a section called "Punctuation" (with "apostrophe", etc. under that) and a second section, "General Typography", and more sections. In other words, it appears as though "Punctuation" is a section within this template rather than the name for the template. I think what would be good (and I have done something to this effect in the sandbox) is to have the name brought to attention more clearly, and a section under it like so:

<big><big>[[Punctuation]]</big></big> General Punctuation

I appeal to the templates for Jesus, Photography, Areas of Mathematics, Turing Machines (the last one perhaps being the best example since it has a similar shape to the template currently in question).

--Limited Atonement (talk) 20:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

"The name of the template is clearly "Punctuation" -- no it is not. -DePiep (talk) 22:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean? I guess the name of the template is most clearly "Punctuation Marks" (rather than "Punctuation"); I take this from the URL used to see and use the template. It is not clearly labeled on the template itself, but I'm wondering what exactly you mean.

--Limited Atonement (talk) 14:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that should be

<big><big>[[Punctuation]]</big></big>

General Punctuation

(General Punctuation being the section title for "Apostrophe", etc. and on the next line)

--Limited Atonement (talk) 14:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria

The Japanese symbol ※ (reference mark) is not uncommon typography in English, it is not English typography! It should be deleted.

The symbol ❦ (aldus leaf, hedera) has probably as much if not more contemporary usage as ☞ and ⁂ and seems reasonable to include under Uncommon typography.

hajhouse (talk) 02:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 12 January 2013. I think ampersat @ should be included in this list.

99.153.64.179 (talk) 03:44, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

It already is under General typography. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 04:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Persian Language

I think persian language should add \fa:الگو:نشانه‌ها\ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rayeshman (talk • contribs) 18:27, 24 January 2013‎ (UTC)

Is it right that the target page does not exist? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Y done, I made you job, guy. BTW the doc page is not protected, so I made twice your job. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 7 March 2013

There is a problem with the links on the currency signs. Since the template is about the symbols, not what they represent, the currency symbols should be linked to the page about the symbol, rather than the page about the currency. For example, the ¥ symbol should be linked to ¥, rather than Japanese_yen, especially because that is not the only currency to use that symbol anyway. There may also be others of them that should, where a page about the symbol exists, be linked to that page, rather than the page about the currency they usually represent.

More precisely, the section that has

[[Argentine austral|₳]] [[Thai baht|฿]] [[Ghana cedi|₵]] [[Cent (currency)|¢]] [[Costa Rican colón|₡]] [[Brazilian cruzeiro|₢]] [[European Currency Unit|₠]] [[Dollar sign|$]] [[Vietnamese dong|₫]] [[Bangladeshi_taka|৳]] [[Greek drachma|₯]] [[Euro sign|€]] [[Florin sign|ƒ]] [[French franc|₣]] [[Paraguayan guaraní|₲]] [[Hryvnia sign|₴]] [[Lao kip|₭]] [[Turkish lira sign|₺]] [[German gold mark|ℳ]] [[Mill (currency)|₥]] [[Nigerian naira|₦]] [[Spanish peseta|₧]] [[Philippine peso sign|₱]] [[Pfennig|₰]] [[Pound sign|£]] [[Indian rupee sign|₹]] [[Rupee sign|₨]] [[Shekel sign|₪]] [[Kazakhstani tenge|₸]] [[Mongolian tögrög|₮]] [[Won sign|₩]] [[Japanese yen|¥]] [[Cambodian riel|៛]]

should instead contain

[[Argentine austral|₳]] [[Thai baht|฿]] [[Ghana cedi|₵]] [[Cent (currency)|¢]] [[Costa Rican colón|₡]] [[Brazilian cruzeiro|₢]] [[European Currency Unit|₠]] [[Dollar sign|$]] [[Vietnamese dong|₫]] [[Bangladeshi_taka|৳]] [[Greek drachma|₯]] [[Euro sign|€]] [[Florin sign|ƒ]] [[French franc|₣]] [[Paraguayan guaraní|₲]] [[Hryvnia sign|₴]] [[Lao kip|₭]] [[Turkish lira sign|₺]] [[German gold mark|ℳ]] [[Mill (currency)|₥]] [[Nigerian naira|₦]] [[Spanish peseta|₧]] [[Philippine peso sign|₱]] [[Pfennig|₰]] [[Pound sign|£]] [[Indian rupee sign|₹]] [[Rupee sign|₨]] [[Shekel sign|₪]] [[Kazakhstani tenge|₸]] [[Mongolian tögrög|₮]] [[Won sign|₩]] [[¥]] [[Cambodian riel|៛]]

108.45.175.173 (talk) 20:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Done Makes sense, thank you.  — daranz [ t ] 01:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Removal of "Ditto mark"

I'd like to remove the Ditto mark (〃) from this list as it is not part of "general typography" in a Western sense. As discussed and contrary to what the article still states, the Unicode ditto mark is reserved for CJK typography. Before removing it from the list I'd like to ask for opinions here though. The article in its current form was created by an IP so I can't go to the user and ask what he or she used as sources. I'd prefer an expert on English typography to edit the article itself but if there is none who is willing, I'll do it myself. --Mudd1 (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

The fact that Unicode has not listed it in Western script(s) does not exactly prove that it does not exist here. The Unicode script_extension (that points to CJK scripts) is not a "reservation" (as in: prohibited for others). [1] states that the CJK-scripts for ditto mark is a more evolving list, changing as research moves on. Unicode also states that the list of usages (CJKs in this case) is based on known, researched isage and that it can vary over time.

We could well end up with a (Western) ditto mark, not yet in Unicode, but with confirmed usage in Western scripts. For sure, in handwriting I do use it. -DePiep (talk) 18:28, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I didn't want to argue that there is no such thing as a ditto mark. There just isn't a separate character for it. I don't know about your font but for me the 〃 looks terribly out of place. At the very least, the character in the list should be replaced by an image that doesn't look so wrong. --Mudd1 (talk) 20:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Another sign (possibly a double existing one?) should be fine indeed. So removing the line altogether is not the plan. -DePiep (talk) 07:18, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘See ditto mark and talk:ditto mark: I found U+2033 ″ double prime (HTML: ″ ″) to be the best Unicode variant. Changed accordingly. -DePiep (talk) 08:42, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks! --Mudd1 (talk) 15:55, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

user:Beland’s additions

Unfortunately, the sidebar historically became unnecessarily inclusionist and there is no consensus even to throw away some certainly inappropriate items, but this should not serve as a pretext to stuff the template with more arbitrary groups of non-letter symbols. The first edit introduced a duplicate (index), the second one added (unrelated) mathematical symbols. I rolled both back. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry; I didn't see the index already in there.

It seems like we don't have a sensible criterion for inclusion/exclusion of mathematical symbols in this template. For example, we have ÷ but not +, and after this revert, we have a link to logic symbols but not mathematical symbols. Since logic symbols are a subset of mathematical symbols, we could make a single link to the latter if we wanted to keep things streamlined. -- Beland (talk) 18:50, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Focus on Western/English typography

Given that this template focuses on Western punctuation (which makes sense, otherwise it seems like it would be too big), that scope should be made clear. Otherwise, it looks like we're considering "punctuation" to mean only "Western punctuation", which sounds culturally biased. We have links to Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean punctuation, which are clearly non-Western, but we also treat non-English quotation marks as "related" rather than first-class marks (which implies an English-only focus). Also note that e.g. the Chinese script symbol for Chinese yuan (元, arguably a grapheme) is not given, only the Latin script one (¥).

What is the best way to do this? Maybe add a centered-text row that says "Western Typographical Symbols" or "English Typographical Symbols" above "Punctuation"? That could also replace the name of the punctuation mark from the transcluding page (which is a bit confusing). -- Beland (talk) 20:17, 29 May 2013 (UTC)